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For those of you sticking with the stable channel of Steam Play's Proton system, Valve have today rolled out all the recent beta changes for everyone.

Previously, you had access to Proton 3.7-3 which was what everyone used by default and you could also use the "Compatibility tool" dropdown in the Steam Play options section to switch to a beta to have the latest updates. Valve must now consider all the changes stable enough, as Proton 3.7-6 is now the default. There's another beta channel now, which is still currently at 3.7-6 but it should remain where the latest changes go.

There's quite a lot of improvements included since the initial release, like: automatic mouse capturing in fullscreen windows by default, performance improvements, certain game compatibility improvements, an updated build of DXVK, more display resolution support and so on. You can see the full changelog here.

If you missed them, we had an interview with the creator of DXVK which is part of Steam Play's Proton and an interview with Linux game porter Ethan Lee recently. We will have another article up having a chat with a few developers about it all in a few days. Given that we're approaching the weekend, it will probably be early next week. We have some interesting people lined up for it, stay tuned.

It's really fun to watch it progress, I'm pretty excited personally to see how it evolves over the next year. It's still early days, but it has been rather promising so far. How have you all been finding it so far? What has been your biggest surprise with it? Let us know in the comments.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Proton, Valve
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61 comments
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bubexel Sep 13, 2018
keep going!
goldenk Sep 13, 2018
I look forward to testing it out when I get home tonight. I love the fact i can play ds3 on linux.
silmeth Sep 13, 2018
I wonder if (when?) they plan to upgrade the wine version on which Proton is based. I believe some problems (perhaps Ōkami HD not launching under Steam Play, as it supposedly works in Wine + DXVK) would be fixed by using newer wine instead of 3.7.
Liam Dawe Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!
doctorx Sep 13, 2018
So excited about this. I have 689 games in steam... Out of those.. 539ish run great under either linux native or steam play. Out of what is left,. All but 11 has to have windows. I got fallout 4 working last night with mods.. just a bit slow for now. The rest are split between wine staging and crossover. So close to deleting windows, i can taste it. I wish i could figure out how to get Diablo III and other blizzard games working with it.
Liam Dawe Sep 13, 2018
Valve must now consider all the changes stable enough, as Proton 3.7-6 is now the only option.

Looks like there is 3.7-6 Beta again (Not to be confused with the old 3.7-6 Beta, before Proton37_3 came and went. LOL!)
Yeah, they literally just did that. Updated the text to be clear on that now.
Nevertheless Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!

That will be the solution to make it work out of the box. However there is a workaround for Skyrim Special Edition. Works for me..

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99i4se/skyrim_on_linux_steam_play_no_voiceno_music_audio/

Edit: This breaks as soon as you fast travel.


Last edited by Nevertheless on 14 September 2018 at 12:55 am UTC
Liam Dawe Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!

That will be the solution to make it work out of the box. However there is a workaround for Skyrim Special Edition. Works for me..

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99i4se/skyrim_on_linux_steam_play_no_voiceno_music_audio/
Workarounds are nice, but the point with Steam Play is to use no workarounds, click and play.
Leopard Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!

That will be the solution to make it work out of the box. However there is a workaround for Skyrim Special Edition. Works for me..

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99i4se/skyrim_on_linux_steam_play_no_voiceno_music_audio/

That workaround breaks when you fast travel afaik.
Nevertheless Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!

That will be the solution to make it work out of the box. However there is a workaround for Skyrim Special Edition. Works for me..

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99i4se/skyrim_on_linux_steam_play_no_voiceno_music_audio/
Workarounds are nice, but the point with Steam Play is to use no workarounds, click and play.

Quite correct! I don't think they would ever whitelist a game with native MS dlls enabled..
edo Sep 13, 2018
I played The Witness, it works great on Linux, and behaves in the same way than on W10. Only issue is that there is a bit of performance penalty which I would like if it were fixed in future releases.

Also other small games, like gta2 works excellent and etc.


Last edited by edo on 13 September 2018 at 9:18 pm UTC
Nevertheless Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!

That will be the solution to make it work out of the box. However there is a workaround for Skyrim Special Edition. Works for me..

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99i4se/skyrim_on_linux_steam_play_no_voiceno_music_audio/

That workaround breaks when you fast travel afaik.

Gotta try...

Yes, you're right. Fast travel is an odd condition to break sound, but yes it does. So it's no real help..


Last edited by Nevertheless on 13 September 2018 at 9:36 pm UTC
wojtek88 Sep 13, 2018
Any idea when the next batch of whitelisted Steam Play games is coming up? :D Or rather... will it come at all before the Steam Play release, or just after?
I would suggest to vote up this issue as you are not the only one that wonders how can we know which titles and when are going to be whitelisted...
lucifertdark Sep 13, 2018
I agree with silmeth.

Here's a short list of what I'd like to see in future versions of Proton.

Wine 3.15, or the most recent stable version if possible..
32bit Prefixes for those games that absolutely need it.
.NET working in 64bit prefixes if possible, we wouldn't need 32bit prefixes that way.
No more 0byte downloads every time I fire up Steam.
An easier way to configure prefixes than Winetricks, or a proper gui for it that makes sense.
unused Proton folder automatically deleted when switching between Beta & non-Beta, at the moment it just hangs around, potential conflict lie that way.

On a brighter note, Proton is flipping awesome.


Last edited by lucifertdark on 13 September 2018 at 9:47 pm UTC
Cyba.Cowboy Sep 13, 2018
Exciting times!

I truly believe that if Valve Software stick at this - and (eventually) get the majority of the "Steam" catalog working via a simple "click" of "install" - it could be a game-changer... Outside of niche applications, a modern Linux-based operating system can do most of what a Microsoft Windows-based system can do these days (often to the same standard, too!), but games is one of the last big hold-outs.

Will it usher in the long fabled era of "the Linux desktop"?

I doubt it - there's a lot of wheels that need to turn for that to happen, and Microsoft have a L-O-T of resources at their disposal if such a thing ever did gain traction... But it will certainly narrow the divide by a considerable margin.
elmapul Sep 13, 2018
they should add an icon to compatible games...
but i'm not sure if the steamOS icon is the right icon to use.
Leopard Sep 13, 2018
I just want voices and music in Skyrim Special Edition....
I believe FAudio will fix that, which Ethan Lee is working on. Let's hope Valve hire him, full speed ahead number 1!

That will be the solution to make it work out of the box. However there is a workaround for Skyrim Special Edition. Works for me..

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99i4se/skyrim_on_linux_steam_play_no_voiceno_music_audio/

That workaround breaks when you fast travel afaik.

Gotta try...

Yes, you're right. Fast travel is an odd condition to break sound, but yes it does. So it's no real help..

We need Faudio to solve that for good.
lucifertdark Sep 13, 2018
Snooping round Github just now I found this Moondust I wonder what it's for?
lucifertdark Sep 13, 2018
they should add an icon to compatible games...
but i'm not sure if the steamOS icon is the right icon to use.

It's very simple: the Linux/SteamOS icon means the game is supported on Linux. If the developers aren't supporting playing the game on Linux, then it should not get that icon. Support means play testing the release, updates, getting bugs fixed and responding to Linux gamers with issues, etc, all the same support we get everywhere else. If the support isn't all there, then it should not be getting that icon. A different icon, maybe, but not the Linux support icon.
One day perhaps, right now all problems in games running under Proton are to be directed to Valve & not the developers. The Developers on the whole are hands off at the moment.
Cyba.Cowboy Sep 13, 2018
One day perhaps, right now all problems in games running under Proton are to be directed to Valve & not the developers. The Developers on the whole are hands off at the moment.

Isn't that part of the appeal though - for developers to be hands-off?

I mean, then Valve Software could push SteamOS/Steam Machines and say "most of our catalog runs perfectly", and they wouldn't need to sit there listening to the million excuses developers have for being anti-Linux...
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